The sport and recreational activity of surfing gained broad popularity in the 1940's in the United States, Australia, and other countries having coastlines with characteristics that produced large ocean waves incident on the shores. The activity often referred to as “riding the waves” was a common recreational activity. As those engaged in this activity began using solid boards, usually made of wood, to increase the length of time one could “ride” a wave, improvements in the design and construction of such boards were made by the practitioners themselves and later by entrepreneurs investing in developing optimal designs, and manufacturing and selling “surfboards” featuring those designs.
Many designs have emerged over time, beginning with so-called long boards, which ranged from 7 to 14 feet in length and were effective at riding small and large waves because of their stability. In the early 1980's, emphasis shifted to high performance short boards with lengths as short as 5 feet that were more maneuverable and allowed surfers to generate greater speed and perform tricks such as jumps and reverses.
One burden that the sport of surfing with surfboards imposed upon the surfers using them was the difficulty of transporting the surfboards to and from the site of surfing activity. Transporting rigid relatively heavy surfboards with lengths between 5 and 14 feet is awkward at best. Surfboards that could be separated into sections were developed to minimize this burden. Also developed were inflatable surfboards that could be deflated and rolled into a compact package that could easily fit into most vehicles or onto many bicycles and motorcycles. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,657,753 discloses a folding inflatable surfboard comprised of two parts which, when assembled, provides some stiffness to the surfboard and the two parts can be separated and folded up for compact storage or transport.
While dealing with the problem of transport and storage, the performance of inflatable surfboards for competitive sport has generally not approached that of rigid one-piece boards. The ability to make sharp turns and reverses on a surfboard depends on being able to use actions by the surfboard rider to push a relatively sharp, hard bottom edge of the surfboard sharply into the water wave. However, inflatable surfboards by their nature generally have not had sharp or rigid edges that can serve this purpose well.